Okay, so maybe hanging out with a band, drinking until the wee small hours is not such a hot idea on a work night. But these things always seem like such a good idea at the time. Anyway, I’m feeling about human now, albeit a tired and fuzzy headed human.

The Rakes sound like the Buzzcocks. Late 70s-ish melodic punk, I guess you’d call it. They’re quite posh, which means that they probably shouldn’t talk in between songs as much as they do. They’re pretty entertaining, although I’m not quite sure where their fanbase has come from or how they can sell out the Academy 1 on virtually no mainstream media coverage. But they did, and people seemed to like them, which is good, I guess. Probably won’t be buying the album, but good fun nonetheless. But that’s not who we were there to see, anyway.

Jim’s sister is the keyboard player in the White Rose Movement, a London-based electro-art-rock band who attract inevitable comparisons with Depeche Mode and Joy Division – not least because their lead singer looks an awful lot like Ian Curtis. And they’re really very good – the singles “Girls in the back” and “Love is a number” are infectiously catchy pieces of pop, and onstage they’re confident and very, very stylish.

Anyways, they’re playing again at the Night & Day in March so I reckon that’s worth pencilling into the calendar. And maybe booking the following day off work like Jim rather sensibly did.

Well, almost. I’m off to see some band or other called The Rakes this evening, who apparently are “Post-Libertines” and have a frontman trying to copy Ian Curtis. Nice to see originality isn’t dead yet, because there’s no other bands in the world trying to do that at the moment, oh no. The reason I’m going to see them is that a friend’s sister is the keyboard player for the support act, the White Rose Movement, and he’s got guest list places.

Wednesday is our band’s next live outing, although we still haven’t practiced with the drummer yet. Could be an interesting one.

Friday is Mew, assuming Ticket-“useless”-line actually get my tickets to me on time. There’s still tickets available if anybody else wants to come and see the Best Band In The World, Ever.

In other news: Ruth Kelly goes to court to give evidence against a man who threw eggs at her, and gets eggs thrown at her. You’ve gotta laugh at that.

This is the best new webcomic in ages. Brilliant.

After our band’s last public performance (at the Altrincham Baptist monthly youth service in February) we made a pledge that we’d all try really hard to have a proper rehearsal at least once a week between then and our next gig, which is next wednesday.

So, tonight, we had our first rehearsal since that youth service. And the drummer still couldn’t make it. With that sort of commitment, we can’t fail to make it big time.

In other news, the A56 between Chorlton and Altrincham was crawling with police tonight; they’d pulled over hundreds of chavs in tricked out Corsas and Saxos. I can see why they’d race there – it’s a wonderful long, straight road – but there’s still loads of traffic, even at 10pm. C’mon boys, if you’re going to engage in illegal street races, try and at least keep it to times when there’s no-one else on the roads. Ta.

(15:04:29) daddy: i have a useful keyring thing that fits in the trolley socket,so you don’t need a pound on ya
(15:04:58) daveg: daddy: How much did that cost you?
(15:05:08) daddy: £2

List of songs deemed inappropriate by ClearChannel after Sept 11th.

Right, in about fifteen minutes I’m leaving the office and driving down to my parents house for Christmas. I should be around over the next week or so as they’re getting wireless interweb access for Christmas, but I don’t expect I’ll be posting very much, in between catching up with friends and family and eating and drinking far too much. I’ll be back at some point with the 2005 Best Thing Ever awards.

Naomi got me a trip on Concorde for Christmas! Bestest. Girlfriend. Ever.

Okay, it’s just a ticket to go and look round the one on the ground at Manchester airport, but still – Concorde!.

On the cubicle wall of one of our office toilets is a little sign explaining the “Dudley Duoflush” system. Please tell me it’s not just me who, on reading that, gets a mental image of a little fat mascot dude, perhaps designed by a toilet manufacturer to teach kids how to flush the toilet in a horrible animated corporate information film. I mean, it fits, right?

Right?

In other news, I hit level 28 at lunchtime today. Go me.

Alright, you can stop now. I’m wasn’t going to buy anyone perfume for Christmas and your teeth-grindingly, mind-buggeringly awful “I’d-rather-slam-my-bollocks-in-a-draw-than-watch-them-again” adverts aren’t doing anything to change my mind.